‘That’ Statement on Overnight Contact And Where We Stand

The trouble with internet reading today, is that people, often literally, take what they’re given. There is an entire science dedicated to how we scan online content and it varies considerably to how we read paper materials, like books. Most of the time, we take a headline or phrase and forget to read the rest.

For those of you who did read on, you will have noted that Penelope Leach’s sentiment was actually not a one size fits all policy, but a general principle, in a very specific context – that of divorcing or separating couples. This, we think, is important to remember.

Whilst our views on overnight stays may not be palatable to all, we thought we would clarify them for you, below. We would like to thank those of you who were patient enough to read our views and to probe us further. We have a long relationship with many of you, which we value, and this week so many of you have trusted us, and listened. We thank you all, very much.

So, here are our views on that statement about overnight contact, which has now become infamous in England at least, thanks to some very mischievous marketers and journalists, no doubt.

On the view that under fives should not, as a general rule, have overnight contact with the non primary carer:

We do not think this is a gender issue, or a fathers’ rights issue.

We believe that where children have been successfully co-parented, or cared for by several people well, that overnight stays are unlikely to be an issue.

However, issues do arise where the enforcing parent/ party is in conflict with the other parent/ party Or, where there has been a ‘traditional’ family set up and baby has not established enough of a relationship with the enforcing parent/ party.

These last two scenarios are quite common, and so they are important. We forget that whilst a lot of parents have started to co-parent, there is still a significant volume of parents who are not doing that, for all sorts of reasons.

So yes, under fives should not have to experience overnight stays without mum, if dad has not been co-parenting and the child is clearly distressed at the thought.

As a final thought we would like to add this: the sentiment above does not equate to our feeling dad/ mum should not be able to be with their child overnight.

As we mention in the radio interview, there are all sorts of wonderful ways of getting around that. We gave the example of Sweden – where it’s common practice for the parents to revolve around the child and for the main residence/ family home to be the child’s base. That way, dad/ mum can stay the night, with the other parent there, so that the child is in a familiar place, with his or her parent/s.

The truth is, the only reason these obstacles arise in the first place is because parents refuse to put their differences aside so that they can focus on parenting instead. It’s much easier, after all, for so many, to war with the other parent than to get down to the serious job of child care.

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28 thoughts on “‘That’ Statement on Overnight Contact And Where We Stand”

Sorry. This is not enough. The principle of making one parent more important in a child’s life than the other is what this is all about and it’s plainly wrong to enforce this no matter how well meaning you are or how sweetly you try to wrap it up. It’s very, very wrong to separate a child from either of it’s parents and it’s wrong to perpetuate that or to give exclusive “residential” contact to one parent.

This is where I think you, and countless other parents get it wrong. It’s not about making one parent more important, or giving residence to another. There can be no debate about these issues as long as parents continue to focus on themselves.

Oh dear… I haven’t seen any of her interviews post the statement, so I don’t know if she’s just trying to smooth out the slightly skewed headline or whether she’s trying to change her stance. I will have to check it out.

Well said Natasha, it is time parents stopped thinking about themselves and their egos and put their children first and what makes them feel secure and happy not what the parents feel the child should or should not be doing. Every child is different and parents need to focus on their children instead of themselves as you said.

It actually has noting to do with egoes and everything to do with allowing a child the right of access to both its parents as laid out in the Convention on Contact issued by the Council of Europe many years ago and still not acted upon.

The below analysis by Professor Linda Nielsen sheds much needed light on the misguided belief that “At the moment 4 out 5 studies of this issue have found that overnight stays by infants and/or toddlers leads to attachment issues.”

“The process of misrepresenting the research in ways that create myths and misconceptions has-been referred to as woozling.” Her important peer review “describes how social science data can be woozled, illustrating this with examples related to parenting plans for children under the age of 5 whose parents have separated.”

Misreporting Data or Wrongly Claiming Similarities among the Findings

We begin with one of the most powerful and most common ways that woozles come into being—repeatedly misreporting or only partially reporting data from a few studies—a process Gelles (1980) referred to as evidence by citation. This can happen even among well-educated professionals who discuss or write about studies without ever having actually read them or having read only the synopsis or the abstract. These kinds of woozles have been referred to as scholarly rumors (Johnston, 2007). Often the few frequently cited studies are presented together, as if they all reached similar conclusions, when in fact they did not. This can mislead people into believing that there is an emerging consensus or a pattern in the data. As cognitive psychologists have documented, people tend to perceive patterns or consistency in data or in situations that are actually random and inconsistent (Chabris & Simons, 2010). In part this occurs because we are more likely to believe data that offer relatively simple, consistent explanations for complicated questions (Kahneman, 2011). Because we like a consistent story, when several research studies are presented together as though their findings are similar, we are inclined to believe there is a pattern or a trend even when none exists.

As we will soon see, repeatedly misreporting certain studies and then presenting them as if they all reached similar conclusions has happened in regard to five of the overnighting studies (Altenhofen, Sutherland, & Biringen, 2010; McIntosh, Smyth, Kelaher, & Wells, 2010; Pruett, Ebling, &Insabella, 2004; Solomon & George, 1999; Tornello et al., 2013). Scholars who have critiqued and compared these five studies have concurred that there was no pattern in the findings and that there were very few similarities among them (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011; Fabricius, Sokol, Dizen, & Braver, 2015; Kelly, 2013; Lamb, 2012a; Ludolph & Dale, 2012; Nielsen,2014a; Pruett et al., 2012; Warshak, 2014).

Nevertheless, as woozles are prone to do, the assertion keeps popping up that these five studies reached a similar conclusion: Frequent overnighting (defined differently in each study) is linked to more insecure attachments, more emotion (affect) regulation problems, or more behavioral problems for children younger than 4 years old. For example, Tornello et al. (2013, p. 883) concluded that their study “is the third of four studies on the topic that show some evidence of increased insecurity among very young children who have frequent overnights.” Likewise, the Australian researchers (McIntosh et al., 2010) who conducted one of the overnighting studies repeatedly stated that their findings overlapped with or were similar to four of the other overnighting studies (McIntosh, 2011b, 2012a, 2014c; McIntosh, Smyth, & Kelaher, 2013; McIntosh et al., 2010). As McIntosh (2012b) told an audience in a keynote address: “To cut a long story short, we took these findings, looked at the other studies, and saw a pattern” (p. 5, emphasis added). But as we will see, there is no pattern.

To begin, the Altenhofen et al. (2010) study could not possibly have reached conclusions similar to any of the studies that compared overnighting to non-overnighting children for one simple reason: All of the children in the study were overnighting. There was no other group in the study. Likewise, this study could not possibly overlap with any other study in finding a link between affect regulation or attachment and overnighting for two obvious reasons. First, affect regulation was not a variable in the study. Second, there was no significant correlation between the number of times these children overnighted and their attachment scores, as would have happened if overnighting was having any impact. The researchers simply found that 54% of these children of divorce had insecure attachment classifications—which is comparable to the 47% of insecurely attached children from single-parent families and higher than the 35% of insecurely attached children from intact families in general population surveys (Mulligan & Flanagan, 2006). In short, this study tells us nothing about differences between overnighting versus non-overnighting on attachment classifications.

The second study by Solomon and George (1999) has been woozled many times over the past 15 years. The many scholars who have critiqued this study concur that there was no significant link between overnighting, insecure or disorganized attachment classifications, or the toddler’s performance on a challenging task with his or her mother in the laboratory playroom (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011; Fabricius, 2014; Kelly, 2013; Lamb,2012a; Lamb & Kelly, 2001; Nielsen, 2014a; Pruett et al., 2012; Warshak,2014). Solomon (1998) summarized their results clearly and succinctly years ago: “Attachment security with the mother was not related to . . . the number of overnights per month, the number of consecutive nights away from the mother, or how well the schedule had been followed. Overnight separation from the mother in and of itself is not necessarily seriously disruptive to the mother–child attachment” (p. 5). In the second phase of the study, there was no way to determine whether the overnighting babies were more distressed when briefly separated from their mother in the laboratory playroom because the overnighting and non-overnighting babies were never directly compared to one another. Given the persistent misrepresentations of their study, Solomon (2013) is still having to clarify their findings: “Neither the particular patterns of overnight visits nor the total amount of time away from mother predicted disorganized attachment” (p. 169). Keeping in mind that 37 of the 44 overnighting babies very rarely overnighted (1–3 times a month) and that the researchers emphasized that the baby’s reactions to brief separations from the mother in the laboratory procedure were not any indication of how babies would react to overnight separations from their mothers in divorced families, we have to wonder why the woozles emanating from this study have been so persistent.

Part of the answer lies in the fact that the study has been repeatedly misreported for so many years by other social scientists—an excellent example of what Gelles (2007) called “evidence by citation.” For example, for more than a decade the authors of the Australian study (McIntosh et al., 2010) have made statements that might unwittingly lead people to believe that Solomon and George found overnighting was linked to a number of serious, negative outcomes in the babies’ day-to-day lives and in the overall quality of their relationships with their mothers. Among these statements were that the overnighting babies were more irritable and more watchful and wary of separation(McIntosh et al., 2010), had a greater propensity for anxious, unsettled behavior when reunited with the primary caregiver and a greater propensity for insecure and disorganized attachment (McIntosh, 2011b, 2011d), had more difficulties in emotional regulation (McIntosh, 2012), more developmental strain (McIntosh & Smyth, 2012), more irritability and fretful behaviors and more vigilant monitoring of the whereabouts of their mother (McIntosh,2013), and more unsettled, volatile and angry behavior and breakdown on reunion with the primary caregiver following a separation (McIntosh, 2014b).

As far back as 2003 (Martin, 2003), McIntosh was quoted in a newspaper article as having said that researchers had found that babies who live alternately with their divorced parents develop long lasting psychological problems, that those arrangements caused enduring disorganized attachment, and that as older children and adults, they have alarming levels of emotional insecurity and poor ability to regulate strong emotion. In 2003, Solomon and George were the only researchers who had conducted an attachment study with overnighting infants, so McIntosh could only have been referring to their study—a study that did not reach any of the conclusions reported in the newspaper article. Even as recently as 2013, McIntosh still held the view that “The value of this study cannot be underestimated: the first to take a deep, observational lens to examine how infants responded to mothers from whom they were frequently separated overnight. It has inspired all the studies since conducted” (McIntosh, 2013), emphasis added.

Reporting the Solomon and George data out of context or in exaggerated ways can unintentionally lead people to believe the woozle that spending even one night a month away from their mother caused the babies to become so insecure and anxious that they got upset whenever they were separated from her; had “breakdowns” when she returned; and became more fretful, angry, and irritable in their day-to-day lives. In sum, this study is an excellent example of a woozle that has been harder to catch than the weasel running around the mulberry bush.

As for the next overnighting study (Pruett et al., 2004), because the researchers did not measure attachment security or emotion regulation, this study cannot be part of a “pattern” linking overnighting to insecure attachments. Nor can this study be similar to others in finding that frequent overnighting had a more negative impact than occasional overnighting because that comparison was never made. In fact, this study cannot be similar to any study that found negative outcomes linked to overnighting because it found none. The overnighters were no different from the non-overnighters on five measures of well-being, with two exceptions. First, when the 4- to 6-year-old boys had inconsistent schedules and also had multiple caretakers, they were more anxious than the girls their age, a finding that the researchers attributed to boys having less advanced social skills than girls their age, not to overnighting. Second, overnighting appeared to benefit the 4- to 6-yearold girls because they were less withdrawn than the non-overnighting girls. Moreover, having multiple caregivers (because they were overnighting) had no impact whatsoever on any measure of well-being for the 2- to 3-year-oldsand had a positive impact on the 4- to 6-year-old girls: “The worry about implementing overnights and parenting plans with multiple caretakers for infants and toddlers is misplaced” (Pruett et al., 2004, p. 55). Despite stating their findings very clearly, their data were still cited to support the woozle that overnighting puts children at greater risk. For example, McIntosh (2013) told a seminar audience that Pruett found “having multiple caregivers was a significant problem for young children” (emphasis added) and that Pruett et al.’s findings “overlapped with” the findings from their Australian study(McIntosh, 2013)—which was not true for the 2- to 4-year-olds. The only “overlap” was that neither study found any negative outcomes linked to overnighting for the 4- and 5-year-olds.

The Australian overnighting study (McIntosh et al., 2010) also had very little in common with the other studies and did not reach similar conclusions. First and foremost, the study did not include any measures of attachment or emotion regulation so it cannot possibly be similar to the only two studies (Solomon & George, 1999: Tornello et al., 2013) that did include those two measures. Second, four of the six measures had no established validity (Nielsen, 2014c; Warshak, 2014). Consequently, these data cannot be compared to findings from other studies because it is not clear what was actually being measured. It would also be difficult to find similarities with other studies as there was no clear or consistent relationship between the frequency of overnighting and the outcomes on most measures. For example, the babies who overnighted more than three times a month were more irritable, according to their mothers, than those who overnighted less often. But they were not less irritable than babies who never overnighted or babies who lived in intact families. The limitations of the study and the problems related to interpreting its data have been enumerated elsewhere, leaving very little interpretable data for children under the age of four to compare to the findings from other studies (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011, 2014; Fabricius, 2014; Kelly, 2014; Lamb, 2012a; Ludolph & Dale, 2012; Nielsen, 2014a, 2014b,2014c; Pruett et al., 2012; Warshak, 2014). In short, this study did not, as authors have stated, “overlap with similar findings from Solomon and George and Altenhofen” (McIntosh, Smyth, & Kelaher, 2015, p. 114).

Similarly, the more recent study by Tornello et al. (2013) does not fit into a pattern of similar findings with the other overnighting studies. The Australian researchers (McIntosh et al., 2015, p. 113) were incorrect in asserting that the Tornello study was “similar to ours” and “replicated many of the Australian findings” (emphasis added). First, unlike any other overnighting study, Tornello et al.’s data came from a very distinct, atypical group of U.S. families: minority, inner-city, impoverished, poorly educated, never married parents with high rates of incarceration, mental health problems, and substance abuse—families where the mothers often had children by several different men with whom they had never even lived. Second, the study could not have much in common with the others because it used entirely different measures of children’s well-being and because it was one of only two studies (Solomon & George, 1999) that had used an attachment measure. Whereas Solomon and George found no link between overnighting and attachment classifications, Tornello et al. did find a link between frequent overnighting and insecure attachment classifications. Because they used an attachment procedure that was not valid, however, we cannot know what was actually being measured—which means their attachment data cannot be used to make any comparison to the Solomon and George study. As for the statement that Tornello et al. replicated the Australian findings, the word replicated is generally defined as repeating a study in all its important details to establish the reliability of the initial finding. None of the overnighting studies have replicated one another. Again then, Tornello et al.’s findings did not overlap or fit into a pattern with the other overnighting studies.

Given how often these five overnighting studies are misrepresented in academic journals and seminars, it is not surprising that the data are also misreported or woozled on the Internet by some social scientists. For example, a professor of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois (Hughes, 2014) wrote on his “Divorce Science” blog: “There is a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests young children’s well-being may be adversely affected by frequent overnight stays. At the moment 4 out of 5 studies of this issue have found that overnights stays lead to attachment issues.”

Source

Linda Nielsen (2015) Pop Goes the Woozle: Being Misled by Research on Child Custody and Parenting Plans, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 56:8,595-633,

Abstract

Mental health professionals, lawyers, and judges whose work involves child custody decisions are often presented with social science research on issues related to which parenting plan is in the children’s best interests. Unfortunately, this research can be misrepresented in ways that mislead these professionals and the children’s parents, leading to child custody decisions that are not the most beneficial for the children. The process of misrepresenting the research in ways that create myths and misconceptions has-been referred to as woozling. This article describes how social science data can be woozled, illustrating this with examples related to parenting plans for children under the age of 5 whose parents have separated.

I listened to the programme and it seemed not only was the interviewer from Three Counties unconvinced by the explanation but also phone-in contributors were too.
You say you gave the example of Sweden, “where it’s common practice for the parents to revolve around the child and for the main residence.” I wonder if this is really the situation ? Feedback I have had from Swedish fathers indicates that it is the theoretical but not the practice.
Imagine what this actually means, both separated parents sharing the same house for Dads sleepover (as such it is not a child’s sleepover with their other parent). I suggest that is not very practical in most countries (other than perhaps Sweden), given that most separated mothers have by the time contact has been arranged – and are speaking about – have by then entered into a new relationship and where there were once 2 adults for the child there are now 3. Offering the mother’s home as the “family home”, and to be used as the child’s sole and permanent base deliberately blocks any fatherly involvement of the type sought.
“High conflict families” – which do exist but in far, far smaller numbers than some would have us believe – are always wheeled out whenever change is sought to improve custody arrangements. I have no problems with tight controls for those high conflict types of family but it is illiberal to inflict the same regime on separating couples where no conflict exits.

No, this is very much what happens in Sweden. The issue of high conflict is very important. It highlights the fact that parents are not able to put their children first, and so we have to look at these scenarios carefully. I make that point in my post.

And yes, anyone who forces a child to have overnight contact with them, is only thinking about themselves.

At the end of the day, this is not about whether one parent is better than the other, whether one is awarded residence, or even right of access (no one is denying that fathers are important) – this is about doing things at the child’s pace. Ad I’ve said before, it can only bolster a relationship if a parent is patient, and it can only damage it, if the parent enforces what they think are their rights.

If only angry parents stopped for a moment to really think about what’s being said here. But all too often, all they hear is ‘access’. It’s just not about that.

RE: “And yes, anyone who forces a child to have overnight contact with them, is only thinking about themselves.”
So can you come clean and say emphatically that mothers who block contact and visitations are only thinking about themselves ?

Whilst the article targets separating parents there can be little doubt that much of what Penelope Leach says can equally be levelled at many intact families. Career requirements and aspirations, financial pressures and basic needs all sometimes involve children’s needs for primary secure attachments being relegated to second place in family priorities. The transitions are not generally being managed well. Separating families are being singled out and targeted for attention. Kids get a raw deal in all sorts of settings and if the welfare of the child is indeed “paramount” then changes in culture are needed.

The UNCRC needs to carry much more weight to ensure that children actually get a relationship with both parents as is their right and the definition of parental responsibility should be clarified to require that parents are mutually supportive in ensuring their children’s parental relationships are encouraged and maintained.

In the wake of the present furore I am already aware of one father who is having over night contact denied unilaterally because, “it will cause them brain damage”. I am sure this was never intended but it shows how unhelpful this sort of thing can be where there is conflict.

It seems that Penelope is now trying to clarify what she actually meant but, whoever is at fault, the words could have been better chosen.

Where there are very young children and they are having trouble coping with transitions I think the best solutions lie in helping families manage and overcome any transitional difficulties sensitively and carefully. Creating further barriers is not helpful to either children or their families and will inevitably heighten any conflict.

Hi Stevie, as someone who is aware of Penelope’s views on parenting, this piece, which I have read, is much more in line with her thinking. Her views may still not seem palatable, but the skewed headlines have ignited debate, however we look at it. I understand that the misunderstanding could be damaging to the bigger picture, but could it also be it’s saving grace? Not all the voices in this debate have been angry or reflex actions- the nation is having a discussion, which it may well not have had the headlines been more bland.

The idea that “the nation is having a discussion” may not as a newspaper issue “have legs” and may be dead by next week.
But what will have legs and will not be dead by next week is the deprivation of contact caused by this authors desire to promote her book and rack up revenue.
is it a saving grace ? That father might not think so.

Thank you for the link to the Nielsen and Warshak comments on Penelope Leach’s psychobabble that urges blanket restrictions on overnight stays and shared parenting for infants and toddlers.

The must read responses set the record straight on where mainstream social science stands on these issues and should be published in full on this blog.

I have also included biographies of the two distinguished scholars and referenced their studies .

Professor Linda Nielsen

“As have many other social scientists, I have written an extensive critique of the McIntosh, Smyth et al study on which Leach relies so heavily—pointing out dozens of examples of how this one study has been “woozled” (distorted and misrepresented) to mislead the public. Leach is yet one more example of how the data from that one study continue to be “woozled” to bamboozle the public into believing that social science research supports a “cautions against overnighting” policy. Since McIntosh has posted a statement on her website expressing her concern about people misrepresenting the study, surely she will contact Leach and the British journalists and publicly correct their misunderstanding of her study. ”

Professor Richard Warshak.

Regular overnight stays with dad recommended for most young children after parents split — major study endorsed by 110 leading experts from 15 countries.

The days are past when experts advised divorced dads to make a clean break from the family and remain, at best, visitors in their children’s lives. Growing awareness that children do best with two parents, whether parents are living together or separated, has led to a trend toward shared parenting. Yet some holdouts believe that shared parenting, appropriate for older children, is ill suited to meet the needs of young children.

The latest is Penelope Leach. Her forthcoming book, in defiance of conclusive evidence to the contrary, contends that children under four should not stay overnight with dad after separation.

Our society maintains a curious double standard when it comes to encouraging hands-on shared parenting. For instance, we want dads involved with their infants and toddlers—changing nappies, feeding, bathing, putting to bed, soothing in the middle of the night, cuddling in the morning. But when parents separate, some people mistakenly think that it is best for young children to spend every night in one home, usually with mom, even when this means losing the care their father has been giving them. Despite all strides in cracking gender barriers, many of us still think that it is a mother’s exclusive role to care for infants and toddlers, and that we jeopardize young children’s wellbeing if we trust fathers to do the job.

The result is the common custody plan where infants and toddlers whose have parents separated only get to see their dads a few hours at a time, a couple of days a week. Hurriedly loading and unloading the child into the car and driving to and from dad’s home at the end of a day hardly lays a good foundation for a comforting and secure relationship with dad.

Fortunately, science offers clear guidance on these issues. I spent two years reviewing the relevant scientific literature and vetting my analyses with an international group of experts in the fields of early child development and divorce. The results have recently been published in the American Psychological Association’s prestigious journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. The report is endorsed by 110 of the world’s leading researchers and practitioners from 15 countries. The endorsement by these scholars reflects a groundswell of concern among experts that misinformation about research evidence is impoverishing custody decisions and public policy.

It is unfortunate that Penelope Leach’s compendium of otherwise sage advice perpetuates a myth that relies on research that has been roundly criticized by these leading international authorities on child development. Leach claims that the evidence is undisputed that children under the age of five should spend every night in their mother’s home if their parents separate. Leach cites two outlier studies to support this radical view and overlooks a pool of studies that reported generally positive or neutral findings for overnights with fathers. The Australian study Leach cites relied on a group of 14 infants for some of its conclusions and used unreliable measures. The scientists endorsing the American Psychological Association recent publication concluded that the Australian study “provides no reliable basis to support custody policy, recommendations, or decisions.” So strong was the indictment and its underlying analysis that, in the wake of its publication, the lead author of the Australian study recently admitted: “Cautions against overnight care during the first three years are not supported.” Apparently Professor Leach has not received the update.

So how did we come to our conclusions based on the mass of evidence? Our first goal was to provide a balanced and accurate overview of settled, accepted research of the past 45 years relevant to parenting plans for children under the age of four whose parents have separated. Our second goal was to provide empirically supported guidelines for policy makers and for people who make custody decisions.

We found no support for the idea that children under four (some say under six) need to spend nearly all their time living with only one parent, when their other parent is also loving and attentive. Warnings against infants and toddlers spending overnight time with each parent are inconsistent with what we know about the development of strong positive parent-child relationships. Babies and toddlers need parents who respond consistently, affectionately, and sensitively to their needs. They do not need, and most do not have, one parent’s full-time, round-the-clock presence.

Many married mothers have work patterns that keep them away from their infants and toddlers at night. Like these married mothers, most single mothers do not need to worry about leaving their children in the care of their fathers. To maximize infants’ chances of having a secure lifelong bond with both parents, public policy should encourage both parents to actively participate in daytime and overnight care of their young children. After their separation, both parents should maximize the time they spend with their young children, including sharing overnight parenting time.

How did public policy and the direction of custody decisions go so wrong? It seems related to the legacy of the “motherhood mystique,” the idea that mothers are innately better suited to care for young children. John Bowlby put forward the notion that infants form enduring ties of affection with just one person, normally the mother, before all other relationships and that this relationship both ranks higher than and serves as a template for other relationships.

A number of studies have examined this hypothesis to see if it reflects infant experience. The research shows that children develop multiple relationships at around the same time. They form relationships with more than one care giver. These are independent of one another in the sense that the relationship with the mother is not a template for that with dad. Even John Bowlby came to recognize later in his career that infants form attachments with more than one caregiver. We cannot rank order these relationships.

It is clear that we should encourage relationships with both parents. Doing so doubles the infant’s chances of having at least one high-quality relationship. Also, moms and dads make different contributions to their children’s development.

The evidence continues to mount. A recent study reported long-term benefits to teenagers and young adults who, as pre-schoolers, spent overnights with their fathers after their parents separated. These children feel more important to their dads than do those who were deprived of overnights. They report better relationships with their dads at no cost to the quality of their relationships with their mothers. And these children showed no signs of any long-term stress-related health problems.

Of course, shared parenting is not for all families. Regardless of their children’s ages, parents should consider a number of factors when creating the best parenting plan. What works for one child in one family may not be best for another child in another family. Our recommendations apply to most families. Some parents are negligent, abusive, or grossly deficient in their parenting, and their children would need protection from them even in intact families, But that fact should not be used to deprive the majority of children who were being raised by two loving parents from continuing to have that care after their parents separate.

It is time to resolve our ambivalence and contradictory ideas about fathers’ and mothers’ roles in their children’s lives. If we value Dad reading Goodnight Moon to his toddler and soothing his fretful baby at 3 a.m. while the parents are living together, why withdraw our support and deprive the child of these expressions of fatherly love just because the parents no longer live together, or just because the sun has gone down?

Cited paspers

Nielsen, L. (2014). Woozles: Their Role in Custody Law Reform, Parenting Plans, and Family Court. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Vol. 20, No. 2, 164–180

Warshak R A (2014) Social Science and Parenting Plans for Young Children: A Consensus Report. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Vol. 20, No. 1, 46–67

About the Authors

Linda Nielsen is a Professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University. A member of the faculty for 35 years, she is a nationally recognized expert on father-daughter relationships. Her work has been featured in a PBS documentary, on National Public Radio, and in dozens of magazines and newspapers. She has authored five books and published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals. Among her honours are: the Outstanding Article Award from the U.S. Center for Women Scholars, a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Women, and an American Bar Association award for establishing an internship program to provide legal aid to victims of domestic violence. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, National Council on Family Relationships, Council on Contemporary Families, and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.

Richard Warshak is a clinical research psychologist, Clinical Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a member of the Editorial Board of three professional journals. His ground breaking research, trenchant challenges to gender stereotypes and passionate advocacy for children have made him one the world’s most respected authorities on divorce, child custody, and the psychology of alienated children. As White House consultant and through his writing, speeches, legislative and courtroom testimony, videos, and workshops, Dr. Warshak has had a profound impact on the law and well-being of families where parents live apart from each other. His work has been featured in a PBS documentary and in media including the New York Times, USA Today, Macleans, the London Sunday Telegraph, the Toronto Star, and Time. Dr Warshak has written two books and published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals

Natasha – the recommendations of Penelope Leach and Jennifer McIntosh and many other psychologists are thoroughly grounded in over half a century of painstaking research by research psychologists. This was clearly summarised by Frank C. P. van der Horst
Center for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands;
De Waag, Outpatient Clinic for Forensic Psychiatry, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and René van der Veer
Center for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands

When they recently wrote:
“British child psychiatrist John Bowlby (1907–1990) is famous for the formulation of attachment theory, in which he tried to explain how and why children form bonds with their parents and caregivers. The basic idea underlying his theory is that children need a loving mother or mother substitute to develop into emotionally healthy adults, and that separation experiences (even minor ones) at an early age may jeopardize this development. Although Bowlby only fully elaborated his thinking on attachment in the 1960s and 1970s—in his trilogy Attachment and Loss ( Bowlby, 1969/1982, 1973,1980)—these basic notions were present very early in his thinking. In 1939, in a paper he read to the British Psycho-Analytical Society to become a full member, Bowlby (1940a) already stated that it was his “belief that the early environment is of vital importance” (p. 156), and that in his treatment of children he made “careful inquiries into the history of the child’s relations to his mother and whether and in what circumstances there have been separations between mother and child” (p. 156). According to Bowlby ( Bowlby, Figlio, & Young, 1986), “that was the first statement of [his] position” (p. 39) and in his own view he did not subsequently change it “in any material way” ( Bowlby, 1958b, p. 248). Even in the 1970s, after the publication of the first and second part of his trilogy, whenever “people preach[ed] to him” ( Smuts, 1977, p. 19) about the all-importance of the way parents treat their children, Bowlby used to react, “I thought that 40 years ago but wasn’t allowed to say it” ( Smuts, 1977, p. 20). That Bowlby knew he would have to go to great lengths to get his ideas accepted in the psychoanalytic movement becomes clear from a remark he once made to his wife Ursula when she asked him what he would pursue in his further career after his research on separation would be completed: “Separation… will keep me busy for the rest of my life” ( Dinnage, 1979, p. 323). In all, Bowlby “confess[ed] to a rather one-track, one-problem mind” ( Tanner & Inhelder, 1971, p. 27).
The historiography on Bowlby’s ideas has rapidly increased in the past two decades, alongside the ever-growing interest in the clinical applications of attachment theory.”
Books on developmental psychology now all provide succinct accounts of the basic tenets of attachment theory (e.g., Bradley, 1989; Crain, 1992;DeHart, Sroufe, & Cooper, 2004; Lightfoot, Cole, & Cole, 2009; P. H. Miller, 1993; Morss, 1990; Smith & Cowie, 1991). For example, Smith and Cowie (1991) quote Bowlby (1953) as saying that “essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother-substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” (p. 11). Smith and Cowie mention Bowlby’s repeated warnings against even temporary separations from the mother and claim that his position went against the prevailing current of opinion. They then raise the question as to how Bowlby arrived at this position, which is normally called the maternal deprivation hypothesis. Other authors pay more attention to Bowlby’s later evolutionary and ethological argumentations (e.g., Crain, 1992; P. H. Miller, 1993) and rank Bowlby (with Lorenz, Tinbergen, and Hinde) among the authors of ethological theories of development. Thus, attention is paid to Bowlby’s claim that there exist something like attachment behaviors, that such behaviors serve a function, that they are innate, and that they can be understood by imagining an “environment of evolutionary adaptedness” in which the proximity-seeking behaviors of the human infant would have been adaptive (cf.P. H. Miller, 1993). As is well known, the later Bowlby argued that proximity-seeking behaviors, such as smiling or crying, serve the function of creating a bond between the infant and one unique adult individual, notably the mother. Such a bond will protect the child in the case of danger, such as an attack by a predator, as the adult person will keep close to the infant and thereby protect it. Proximity-seeking behaviors would thus have survival value and have become part of the innate pattern of fixed behaviors in the process of natural selection ( van der Horst, 2008; see, for a criticism of this evolutionary view, Morgan, 1975; Riley, 1983).”

Note in particular the statement that “The basic idea underlying his (Bowlby’s) theory is that children need a loving mother or mother substitute to develop into emotionally healthy adults, and that separation experiences (even minor ones) at an early age may jeopardize this development.” That statement stands and will always stand as the basis for any Court decisions regarding contact arrangements of young children, despite the protestations of that small group of vociferous fathers and their countervailing claims.

I’m afraid that Warshak and his small band of sycophants are entirely out of step with the majority of members of their respective profession.

Isn’t it amaging that there is no mention of Sir Michael Rutter in any upgrade of thinking about Attrachmnt Theory and that the world’s top 100 experts, who actually represent the majority of members in their profession, are dismissed as a small band of sycophants.
Look at the dates of the citations used against the progressive Warshak et al view. Doesn’t this tell us that the sycophants are on the other side of the argument ?.

“I’m afraid that Warshak and his small band of sycophants are entirely out of step with the majority of members of their respective profession.”–

This statement is without substance. The 110 endorsers of the Warshak paper are an interdisciplinary and international group of prominent representatives from the fields of early child development, clinical and forensic psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social work, and counselling. Their expertise, research, and publication credits span a wide range of theoretical perspectives and include a cross-section of specialties in attachment, psychological development of infants and toddlers, parent-child relations, day-care, child custody, divorce, object relations, and forensic psychology. The qualifications of the endorsers to vet the consensus report’s literature reviews and analyses and to judge the conclusions and recommendations that flowed from those analyses are beyond dispute.

The consensus report’s analysis of the literatures on attachment, day-care, and divorce, was vetted by prominent international authorities in attachment, principal investigators for the celebrated NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, and leading divorce researchers who have studied the impact of divorce since the mid-1970s.

So there is no reason that social workers should take the decision to stop contact with birth mother so the foster carer can bond with the child, given that a child can form more than one bond simultaneously! If anything it would be more beneficial to have both!

Have you heard that children under the age of four should live primarily, or exclusively, with their mothers after their parents separate because too much “overnighting” in their father’s care creates a host of problems—especially for infants? Have you read that babies and toddlers who frequently spend the night at their father’s house are less securely attached to their mothers and are more irritable, anxious, and stressed than those who only spend time with their nonresidential fathers during the day?

If so, then you—along with many lawyers, judges, and policy makers—have been misled. You are unlikely to know that 110 international experts agree with the conclusion reached by psychologist Richard Warshak in his recent research paper: there is no scientific evidence that justifies limiting or postponing overnighting until children of separated parents reach the age of four.

You’re also probably unaware that only six studies have compared overnighting to non-overnighting infants and toddlers—three of which found more positive outcomes for the overnighters, and only one of which found negative effects. That one study has received the most publicity and has also been the most highly criticized for its flaws and questionable conclusions. Unfortunately, the mistaken belief that overnighting is “bad” lives on, too often resulting in custody decisions and custody laws that deprive these very young children of overnight care from their fathers.

So I wanted to find out how and why so many people—including well-educated professionals involved in making custody decisions and reforming custody laws—came to believe that overnighting had been “proven” to be so damaging. As I explain in a recently published article, the answer involves a process I call woozling.
The term comes from the children’s story where Winnie the Pooh and his friends become obsessed with the idea that they are being stalked by a frightful beast they call a woozle. In reality, there is nothing to fear because there are no woozle “footprints”; the footprints they see are their own as they keep circling the tree. They were deceived by faulty “data.” Using Winnie’s imaginary woozle as an analogy, the sociologist Richard Gelles coined the word “woozle” to refer to a belief that takes hold in the general public but that is based on inaccurate, partial, or seriously flawed data. But because the faulty conclusion is repeated so often, most people embrace it as the truth.

So how are woozles depriving the youngest children of overnight fathering time? In large part, the answer has to do with a single Australian study that has frequently been cited as “scientific evidence” against overnighting. The message that arose from this 2010 study was this: Babies who overnight more than three times a month and toddlers who overnight more than nine times a month are more irritable, inattentive, physically stressed, anxious, insecure, and wary than other children. They are also “severely distressed” with their mothers, and they wheeze more often due to stress. Overlooking the fact that on four of the six measures the overnighters were no different from the non-overnighters and never mentioning the study’s flaws, many journalists reported on the study under such alarming headlines as “Infants struggle in shared care” and “Shared custody a mistake for under-2’s.”

I set out to peel back the layers of the many woozles arising from this study. For example, the “wheezing woozle” claimed that overnighting caused babies to be so stressed that they wheezed more often. But as most pediatricians and parents know, infant wheezing can be caused by many factors having nothing to do with stress, like mold, pets, cigarette smoke, and carpets in the home. Add to that another medical fact: infant wheezing is often difficult to detect even for doctors, let alone for mothers who were asked to answer only one question (“Does your child wheeze more than four nights a week?”). And even for diehards who insist that the wheezing was measured accurately and was caused by stress, the woozle ignores the fact that toddlers who frequently overnighted wheezed the least.

Then there was the “whining woozle,” claiming that overnighting made babies more irritable and more “severely distressed”—which was interpreted to mean they were not securely attached to their moms. The reality? The overnighting babies had exactly the same mean score on irritability as babies from intact families. Then, too, the babies who frequently overnighted were no more irritable than those who never overnighted.

As for “severe distress,” the overnighters’ scores on the behavioral problems test were well within normal range. And those behaviors that were considered signs of a toddler’s “severe distress”—kicking, biting, or getting angry at their mom, gagging on food or refusing to eat, being clingy and crying when mothers were leaving—turned out to be behaviors reported by nearly 50 percent of Australian moms of toddlers in a separate nationwide survey. In short, the severe distress and whining woozles rest on shaky ground.

Especially in matters as important as depriving children of fathering time, we need to ask ourselves: Am I being woozled in this report about the “scientific evidence”? Fortunately, there are journalists who are not so easily bamboozled and whose investigative reporting raises public awareness about woozled data. Indeed, this has happened in Australia, where the journalist Bettina Arndt investigated the study that I had written about in my woozling paper. By revealing the woozles that the study had created, Arndt’s reporting led several organizations to reexamine their recommendations against overnighting.

But even without the help of journalists, we have a responsibility to examine more carefully the studies that receive the most media attention. Otherwise, we can end up like Winnie the Pooh: woozled into being afraid of something that should never have aroused our fear at all.

Linda Nielsen is a professor of educational and adolescent psychology at Wake Forest University. This post was adapted from her article “Woozles: Their Role in Custody Law Reform, Parenting Plans and Family Court.”

It is of more than passing interest that the Warshak consensus manuscript was endorsed by 110 scholars, from 15 countries who are at the top of their professions. The eminent signatories listed in the appendix include Professors Emeriti, Deans, Presidents of professional associations and department heads. Collectively the assemblage of scholars have about 10,000 publications to their credit.

Perhaps, the most disturbing thing in Professor Nielsen’s “Woozles” paper pertains to the shabby standards of results-orientated social science research. Lawmakers and courts take this research that forms the picture of society on which government policy is based, not to mention the general public, as being simply objective truth. She documents in devastating detail the degree to which sloppy research standards have opened the door to dogma and misguided social policy.

Researching Reform readers who have not read the Nielsen & Warshak papers can access the studies at the following links:

The studies of traumatised and institutionalised children “who spent their first years in Romanian orphanages or in other situations of unremitting abuse and neglect” and who were separated from both parents and left with strangers that primed Bowlby’s early theories are not applicable to the circumstances where very young children are separated from one parent to whom they are attached and spend a night or two with another parent to whom they are attached. It is a mistake to ascribe the emotional problems of these institutionalised children to maternal deprivation. Today, mental health professionals would view their problems as trauma reactions to the sub-standard treatment they received in institutions whose care was far below current benchmarks (Ludolph 2012)

All of the pertinent research shows that there are no grounds for putting in a sequential arrangement the importance of mothers and fathers as infants typically develop close relationships with both parents at the same time, rather than one before the other. Moreover, both relationships are psychologically vital to the developing child and after divorce children do best when they maintain these important relationships. (Lamb 2012)

The Family Court Review Special Issue edited by McIntosh focused on the views of traditional attachment theorists, neglecting to interview more progressive thinkers or put many thought-provoking questions to the traditionalists. The advances in attachment research in the last half century were little acknowledged. Among the unexplored research findings were the discovery that early attachment status can change, often as a result of negative life events; that maternal deprivation and other early losses are recoverable; and that infants do not require one primary caregiver to thrive. The notion that young children should not have overnight stays with their fathers was presented as fact, when little convincing research exists on the question.

Key Points for Family Court Community:

• The Family Court Review Special Issue presented the views of traditional attachment theorists.

• More contemporary views of attachment were not presented in a balanced way.

• Among the ideas supported by current attachment research that were insufficiently addressed are:

_ Early attachment does not uniquely determine later functioning.

_ Early losses are generally recoverable.

_ Infants and young children form multiple attachments and generally are attached to both their mothers and fathers.

_ Current research is sparse and provides no convincing support for the idea that young children should have little or no overnight time with their fathers.

Michael E Lamb, M. (2012). A Wasted Opportunity to Engage With The Literature On The Implications of Attachment Research For Family Court Professionals. Family Court Review, 54: 481–485

The Family Court Review Special Issue edited by McIntosh provided a misleadingly narrow view of attachment theory and of previous attempts to explore the implications of that theory and related research for family court professionals. For example, the editor chose to interview professionals whose opinions seemed likely to accord with hers, and when they dissented, she failed to explore the implications. She thus represented Bowlby’s notion of monotropy as though it was an established and accepted fact; neither the research (which shows the idea to be incorrect) nor Bowlby’s own later disavowal of the idea were addressed, although the implications are profound. More generally, the extensive relevant scholarship was ignored and unrepresented, leaving the unchallenged focus on the editor’s own research and on opinions that accord with her own. As a result, the Special Issue became a platform for opinion, rather than a forum for critical examination of the literature.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

• Most children in two-parent families form attachments to both of their parents at the same stage in their development.

• Relationships with both their mother and father profoundly affect children’s adjustment, whether or not they live together.

• Professionals need to be careful when generalizing from research which may have involved families in circumstances quite unlike those experienced by the individuals they are trying to assist.